I was deluged in a tsunami of pain and tormented by a nightmare that would not relent. Every day brought more bad news. My mom became very weak over Thanksgiving. We buried her six weeks later.
The son we thought would never rebel began to lie to us. My father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. I began to have serious problems with a staff member I had hired for our church.
A publisher reneged on a promise to publish a book I had spent a great amount of time writing.
Another one of our sons was projected to finish no lower than third in the state high school wrestling championships. He was using his wrestling success as a platform to share his testimony. But after a freak ailment and a bizarre referee’s decision, he failed to place and was heartbroken.
I was so distracted by it all I ran a red light and totaled my car. Cathy’s dad died fifteen minutes before she could get to his deathbed to say good-bye.
My sister-in-law’s marriage started to unravel.
My dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer and needed continual care. Day by day we helplessly watched as he wasted away.
I kept asking God to either hold back the onslaught or at least show us what He was doing. He did neither.
It got so that I could not sleep more than a few hours at night. I would awaken from bad dreams with an overwhelming sense of dread. I was afraid of what could possibly happen next.
Crushed under the weight of more burdens than I could bear, I sat down with a man I considered to be a good friend. He knew most of what we were going through, and I was sure he would give me some much-needed encouragement. I mentioned some of our struggles and said, “I can really use a friend right now.”
I will never forget his response.
“No,” he said, “I can’t be your friend.” Then he stood up and walked out of the room.
Stunned, I could not fathom his coldness. I felt as if he had hit me with a sledgehammer.
Later, after I had regrouped, I contacted him again. I asked what on earth I had done to illicit such a heartless response.
He had me. I was battered and broken. He had the choice. He could either help me carry the burden or add more to it.
He chose the latter.
He coolly pulled out a notebook and read me ten areas of my life and ministry he thought were out of line. Like Job’s “friends,” instead of lightening the load, he piled more on.
Obviously this did not help me or enhance our relationship. (To his credit, he has since apologized and made efforts to make amends.)
Over the past few years, every time I wanted to get angry at Him, God has reminded me of times when I acted like an unloving jerk, insensitive to someone else’s burdens, and failed to help them carry their load. That painful episode made me much more sensitive to people in pain and more aware of how important it is to at least try to help carry the load for someone who is broken by massive burdens.
Two thousand years ago, the apostle Paul wrote to the church of Galatia. They were caught up in self-righteous legalism, and their fellowship was suffering as a result. Paul gave them sage advice.
Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of
Christ. If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load.
GALATIANS 5:26–6:5 (EMPHASIS ADDED)
Secret # 13
Carry others’ burdens.
Paul’s letter to the Galatians gives us helpful insights on helping others with their burdens. Let’s look at what he says and then dig deeper so we can apply it to our relationships.
There seems to be a contradiction between Galatians 6:2 (“carry each other’s burdens”) and Galatians 6:5 (“each should carry their own load”), but there is not. In verse 2 the word burdens refers to “a heavy load, a crushing trial, a weight too great to bear alone.” In verse 5 the word load speaks of “a load small enough to be carried on your back,” and refers to a soldier’s backpack.
There are some responsibilities I must bear on my own. I am responsible to be the husband and father in my home. I am responsible to carry out the tasks God has called me to fulfill. As verse 5 says, I need to shoulder my own responsibilities.
There are also some concerns that are common to life on planet earth. We all face a regular dose of small but annoying troubles, trials, and tribulations. We need to carry on in spite of them.
But verse 2 speaks of those burdens that are simply too great to be carried alone. Trying to shoulder them crushes the person underneath the weight. These burdens can refer to the pulverizingly heavy burdens that often come in this life—sickness, unemployment, loss of a loved one, loneliness, and rejection. As a pastor, I regularly saw people crushed by such heavy loads.
Sometimes there was no one to blame. A family breadwinner loses hope after losing his job and being unable to find another. A usually upbeat young lady staggers from the doctor’s office stunned with the news that she has breast cancer. A single mom is overwhelmed by the added load of caring for her sick and aging parents. A fire destroys the family home.
Sometimes our burdens are caused by the sins of others. Parents grieve as their beloved daughter is killed by a drunk driver. A couple is racked with shame and guilt when their teenage son is arrested for drug use. Another couple pulls away from everyone else, embarrassed that their fifteen-year-old daughter is pregnant. A wife is crushed to find pornography on her husband’s computer. A husband is broken when his wife asks for a divorce. A young husband comes home from work early to find his wife in the arms of another man. A pastor is exhausted by battling a litany of costly legal trials and IRS audits stemming from false accusations by a disgruntled member. A family is in financial turmoil as the father is fired for embezzling a large sum of money and must pay it back or go to jail.
In many cases, who is to blame is not the issue. It is the weight of the load that matters. All of these are crushing loads that no one can carry alone. Our responsibility is to notice, stop, bend down, and reach out to help the overwhelmed and oppressed lift their load and carry it. We must develop the extraordinary skill for detecting the burdens of others and making them lighter.
Carrying the burdens of others is often rather simple.
Sometimes all that is needed is taking just a minute to listen, offer words of encouragement, put your hand on their shoulder, and pray for them. You can also ask how you might help, and check in regularly so they do not feel so alone in their pain.
On other occasions, burden-bearing may be more complicated and costly. It may take writing a large check to cover someone’s unexpected bill or taking time every week to drive someone to a doctor’s appointment. It may require making some phone calls on behalf of an elderly man. It could cost an evening as you watch a hurting young couple’s small children and give them money for a date night. Or it may require doing the weekly yard work of a recent widow or the housework of a widower.
Several years ago my good friend Joan and her family experienced a crushing nightmare. As Joan was pulling out of a grocery store parking lot, her vehicle was crushed by an eighteen-wheeler. Flown to a hospital, Joan was not expected to live. She was a mess of broken bones, including a fractured skull. She had experienced a traumatic brain injury.
I will never forget going to the hospital that night. When I was finally allowed to see her, I couldn’t remember ever seeing a human look less human. Blood, swelling, bandages, tubes, and machines combined to create a macabre scene. As I recall that night and try to write this chapter, I cannot help choking back tears. As a pastor, I have seen numerous people lying in intensive care units, but Joan was probably in the worst shape of all. I did not see how she would live through it, and if she did, I was sure her disabilities would ensure that she would never have a very high quality of life.
Over the next few years, we saw God do many amazing things. Many members of our church helped Joan and her family carry the crushing load of rebuilding their lives. In a letter she wrote to me, Joan said,
My church acted as the hands and feet of Christ. My family got meals each night from January until my kids got out of school in June. My house was cleaned each week by teams of women from the church until I could manage it myself. I also had two women a day who sat with me once I came home. I could not be left alone because of the swallowing problem. This was such a huge amount of volunteerism, but I was never, ever made to feel like anybody minded the extra work.1
Since then Joan has experienced an almost complete recovery. Her marriage has been enriched and her love for the body of Christ deepened.
Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
GALATIANS 6:1–2 (EMPHASIS ADDED)
The context of burden bearing is restoring people who have been overwhelmed by their sin. Their failure to resist temptation has created overwhelming burdens. Our obligation is to lighten their load and gently restore them.
We must act. We must help people get out of their sin and put their lives back together. Certainly we would not merely walk by a person who has stumbled and fallen into a dangerous place. We would make every effort to go to them, reach down, pick them up, and help carry them out. This is exactly what Paul says we must do for one another spiritually.
When someone falls into sin, we must not rejoice over their downfall or reveal their sin to others. No. We are called to restore them. The word restore speaks of mending a torn net, equipping an army, outfitting a ship for a voyage, setting a broken bone, or polishing a person’s character.
The manner of restoration is gentleness. The motive is love. The purpose is to help the fallen get up and get going so they can become spiritually useful again. The means is humble confrontation and ongoing accountability. Accountability is a tool and gift we use to help others resume their lives stronger than before.
I have a friend—I’ll call him Keith—who wanted to be a leader in our church. Part of the leadership development process involved mentoring and accountability from a more advanced leader. Keith’s mentor was to be Tom (also not his real name). As this process began, it became evident to Tom that Keith had some potentially problematic moral and marriage issues. Eventually he asked Keith point-blank if he was being unfaithful to his wife.
Keith denied it, but he was unconvincing.
Tom asked me to sit in on their next meeting. Together we confronted Keith with patterns of behavior that pointed to adultery. Reluctantly he admitted it but seemed unrepentant. When we pointed out the seriousness of adultery, Keith broke down before God and repented of his sin. Over the next few weeks, we led him through a process of completely removing himself from the immoral relationship. We coached him on how to rebuild his marriage and renew his walk with God.
Tom provided Keith with loving, consistent accountability to continue on the right path until thinking and doing right became Keith’s lifestyle. Eventually Keith was fully restored and became the spiritually effective leader and godly husband and father he wanted to be.
Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions.
GALATIANS 5:26–6:4 (EMPHASIS ADDED)
The way we view ourselves determines the way we will treat others. In this passage about helping the weak and restoring the fallen, Paul says to “watch ourselves” and “test our own actions.” We need to treat the weak, the fallen, and the burdened as we would like someone to treat us if we were in the same situation. We should treat them humbly and gently, with dignity and grace. Otherwise we will needlessly add to the burdens of the weak and the fallen.
Paul identifies four actions that fail to remove the burden from the weak or to restore the fallen. These must be avoided as we carry each other’s burdens.
Friends who effectively carry the burdens of others are selfless in their attitude and approach. They don’t use the other person’s suffering for their own benefit. They are not “conceited, provoking and envying each other” (Galatians 5:26).
Effective burden bearers refuse to act superior to the hurting person. They never act too good or too important to stoop down and get their hands dirty. Instead they recognize their own areas of spiritual struggle, watching themselves so they are not tempted (Galatians 6:1) and refusing to see themselves as something they are not (Galatians 6:3).
Instead of heaping self-righteous condemnation on the suffering person, effective burden bearers judge themselves (Galatians 6:4). They recognize that we all struggle in life. They are aware of the fact that if they aren’t suffering right now it is more a testimony of God’s goodness and grace than anything they have done or deserve.
Holding someone accountable does not mean we view ourselves as being in control of their lives. The effective burden bearer is gentle in attitude and approach. Gentleness does not mean being passive, retiring, or uninvolved. It also doesn’t mean using the other person’s plight as an excuse to control them. The gentle person is not harsh, severe, or abusive. He or she doesn’t patronize or speak down to others. Instead the gentle person is equitable, moderate, fair, forbearing, and kind.
No selfish competition, criticizing, condemning, or controlling. No one should be kicked when they are down. Instead they should be gently, yet firmly, lifted up and helped to get going again. Treating the weak and fallen with humility, grace, and gentleness enables us to really help them.
Brothers and sisters … carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
GALATIANS 6:1–2 (EMPHASIS ADDED)
By carrying the burdens of others we “fulfill the law of Christ.” Paul explains what this means when he writes, “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Galatians 5:14). The key is love.
Serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. GALATIANS 5:13–15 (EMPHASIS ADDED)
The Galatians were legalistic people, more interested in rules and rituals than relationships. They tended to focus on the external instead of the internal. Paul warned them not to “bite and devour each other” in crippling criticism and condemnation (Galatians 5:15) but instead to “serve one another humbly in love” (Galatians 5:13). The key to getting along with others is always love. Helping the weak and restoring the fallen is ineffective without it.
Burden bearing is the command of God for the loving Christian. Drop your pride and judgmentalism. Stoop down and help others lift their loads. Take every opportunity to help the weak and restore the fallen.
Notes
1. Joan Angus, personal correspondence with the author. Used with permission.